AWS Snow Family

• Highly-secure, portable devices to collect and process data at the edge, and migrate data into and out of AWS

• Data migration

• Edge computing

Data Migrations with AWS Snow Family

Challenges:

  • Limited connectivity

  • Limited bandwidth

  • High network cost

  • Shared bandwidth (can’t maximize the line)

  • Connection stability

Diagrams

• Direct upload to S3

• With Snow Family

Snowball Edge (for data transfers)

  • Physical data transport solution:moveTBs or PBs of data in or out of AWS

  • Alternative to moving data over the network (and paying network fees)

  • Pay per data transfer job

  • Provide block storage and Amazon S3-compatible object storage

• Snowball Edge Storage Optimized

  • 80 TB of HDD capacity for block volume and S3-compatible object storage

• Snowball Edge Compute Optimized

  • 42 TB of HDD or 28TB NVMe capacity for block volume and S3-compatible object storage

• Use cases: large data cloud migrations, DC decommission, disaster recovery

AWS Snowcone & Snowcone SSD

  • Small, portable computing, anywhere, rugged & secure, withstands harsh environments

  • Light (4.5 pounds, 2.1 kg)

  • Device used for edge computing, storage, and data

    transfer

  • Snowcone – 8 TB of HDD Storage

  • Snowcone SSD – 14 TB of SSD Storage

  • Use Snowcone where Snowball does not fit (space-constrained environment)

  • Must provide your battery/cables

  • Can be sent back to AWS offline, or connected to the internet and use AWS DataSync to send data

AWS Snowmobile

• Transfer exabytes of data (1 EB = 1,000 PB = 1,000,000 TBs)

• Each Snowmobile has 100 PB of capacity (use multiple in parallel)

• High security: temperature controlled, GPS, 24/7 video surveillance

• Better than Snowball if you transfer more than 10 PB

AWS Snow Family for Data Migrations

Snow Family – Usage Process

  1. Request Snowball devices from the AWS console for delivery

  2. Install the snowball client / AWS OpsHub on your servers

  3. Connect the snowball to your servers and copy files using the client

  4. Ship back the device when you’re done (go to the right AWS facility)

  5. Data will be loaded into an S3 bucket

  6. Snowball is completely wiped

What is Edge Computing?

• Process data while it’s being created on an edge location

• These locations may have

  • Limited / no internet access

  • Limited / no easy access to computing power

• We set a Snowball Edge / Snowcone device to do edge computing

• Use cases of Edge Computing:

  • Preprocess data

  • Machine learning at the edge

  • Transcoding media streams

  • Eventually (if need be) we can ship back the device to AWS (for transferring data for example)

Snow Family – Edge Computing

• Snowcone & Snowcone SSD (smaller)

  • 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory, wired or wireless access

  • USB-C power using a cord or the optional battery

• Snowball Edge – Compute Optimized

  • 104 vCPUs, 416 GiB of RAM

  • Optional GPU (useful for video processing or machine learning)

  • 28 TB NVMe or 42TB HDD usable storage

  • Storage Clustering available (up to 16 nodes)

• Snowball Edge – Storage Optimized

  • Up to 40 vCPUs, 80 GiB of RAM, 80 TB storage

• All: Can run EC2 Instances & AWS Lambda functions (using AWS IoT Greengrass)

• Long-term deployment options: 1 and 3 years discounted pricing

AWS OpsHub

• Historically, to use Snow Family devices, you needed a CLI (Command Line Interface tool)

• Today, you can use AWS OpsHub (a software you install on your computer/laptop) to manage your Snow Family Device

  • Unlocking and configuring single or clustered devices

  • Transferring files

  • Launching and managing instances running on Snow Family Devices

  • Monitor device metrics (storage capacity, active instances on your device)

  • Launch compatible AWS services on your devices (ex: Amazon EC2 instances, AWS DataSync, Network File System (NFS))

Snowball Edge Pricing

• You pay for device usage and data transfer out of AWS

• Data transfer IN to Amazon S3 is $0.00 per GB

• On-Demand

  • Includes a one-time service fee per job, which includes:

    • 10 days of usage for Snowball Edge Storage Optimized 80TB

    • 15 days of usage for Snowball Edge Storage Optimized 210TB

  • Shipping days are NOT counted towards the included 10 or 15 days

  • Pay per day for any additional days

• Committed Upfronts

  • Pay in advance for monthly, 1-year, and 3-years of usage (Edge Computing)

  • Up to 62% discounted pricing

Hybrid Cloud for Storage

  • AWS is pushing for a ”hybrid cloud”

    • Part of your infrastructure is on-premises

    • Part of your infrastructure is on the cloud

  • This can be due to

    • Long cloud migrations

    • Security requirements

    • Compliance requirements

    • IT strategy

  • S3 is a proprietary storage technology (unlike EFS / NFS), so how do you expose the S3 data on-premise?

  • AWS Storage Gateway!

AWS Storage Cloud Native Options

AWS Storage Gateway

  • A bridge between on-premise data and cloud data in S3

  • Hybrid storage service to allow on-premises to seamlessly use the AWS Cloud

  • Use cases: disaster recovery, backup & restore tiered storage

  • Types of Storage Gateway:

    • File Gateway

    • Volume Gateway

    • Tape Gateway

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